Yesterday, I attended the 40th anniversary of the Space Coast Writers’ Guild, a big influencer on my author journey. During the last ten years, I have completed twenty-eight books and submitted nearly fifty pieces to eighteen juried anthologies. This is one I completed called COVID-19 CHANGED MY WORLD. Its genre: A Personal Essay by Betty Whitaker Jackson
Chronology I: Know Your Enemy
My theme for 2020 was “Sharing the Plenty in 2020.” Little did I know what would be in store for the world, or why my role as an encourager would be stretched in so many ways. I am beginning this piece January 21, 2021. A year ago today, the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the United States. The man had been in Wuhan, China. This is the CDC report, January 21, 2021:
January 21 — CDC Confirms First US Coronavirus Case
A Washington state resident becomes the first person in the United States with a confirmed case of the 2019 novel coronavirus, having returned from Wuhan on January 15, thanks to overnight polymerase chain reaction testing. The CDC soon after deploys a team to help with the investigation, including potential use of contact tracing.
January 21 — Chinese Scientist Confirms COVID-19-19 Human Transmission
At this point, the 2019 novel coronavirus has killed 4 and infected more than 200 in China, before Zhong Nanshan, MD, finally confirms it can be transmitted from person to person. However, the WHO is still unsure of the necessity of declaring a public health emergency.
January 23 — Wuhan Now Under Quarantine
In just 2 days, 13 more people died and an additional 300 were sickened. China makes the unprecedented move not only to close off Wuhan and its population of 11 million, but to also place a restricted access protocol on Huanggang, 30 miles to the east, where residents can’t leave without special permission. This means up to 18 million people are under strict lockdown.
January 31 — WHO Issues Global Health Emergency
With a worldwide death toll of more than 200 and an exponential jump to more than 9800 cases, the WHO finally declares a public health emergency, for just the sixth time. Human- to-human transmission is quickly spreading and can now be found in the United States, Germany, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan(https://www.ajmc.com/view/a-timeline-of-COVID-1919-20)
January 21, 2021.10:00 a.m. AJMC=The American Journal of Managed Care
COVID-19 teaches us how vulnerable we are. We are literally in survivor, we hope, mode. We question, we doubt, we cope, we despair, and we accommodate. Today’s death toll is over 420,000 in the United States alone.
Ultimately, as aftermath, we will experience a changed world because of COVID-19.
In early 2020 we began to hear about the threat. At first, perhaps naively, it now turns out, we thought we could isolate it. Keep the Chinese virus out!
Crux of the problem: the evil has escaped. Hoards of infected Chinese escape or are dispersed to infect Europeans and Americans.
We hear about New Rochelle, a Jewish community. “Put up barricades!” they say. Then, “Close the borders!” they say. “It affects old people with pre-existing conditions!” they say.
Week after week, we listen to Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx, (I admire her scarf collection) Vice President Pence, Governor Cuomo, Dr. Oz, Sanjay Gupta, Dr. Siegal, and other “experts” whose opinions change by the hour. Misinformation leads to distrust; distrust leads to tension; tension leads to worry; worry leads to depression; depression is painful. We abhor crises invading our lives. We just want this whole thing to be over.
The “come-ons” for this Call for Submissions listed many aspects of aftermath. Without question, this COVID-19 affects doing business, obtaining necessities, practicing religious and cultural freedoms, educating our children, and protecting our elderly. It occupies on our psyches.
Our new President is appointing Dr. Fauci and Dr. Dearlove, among others, to investigate answers to the origins of the virus. According to Steve Hilton’s report tonight, January 24, (https://video.foxnews.com/v/6225847837001) January 25. 2021 9:30 a.m.) these are the very people who commissioned study and financed this “Gain of Function virus study” in Wuhan in 2014.
Before we suggest urban legends or conspiracy theories, it would do us well to investigate the roles of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and World Health Organization in financing genetic manipulation of viruses in Wuhan and in our universities. Did President Obama and President Trump defund these studies? Just this week, in a speech to the WHO Board of Directors, Dr. Fauci pledged, (to make up for lost funding from the USA) “We will work with partners to develop new international financing mechanisms for health security,” government-speak for continuing genetic and biological studies of new viruses produced in laboratories.
(https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2021/01/21/dr-anthony-s-fauci-remarks-world-health-organization-executive-board-meeting.html January 25, 2021 9:45 a.m.)
Now, January 2021 we hear about mutations to the original virus, some even more contagious. (London, Germany, South Africa, Brazil) Travel bans have again been issued.
Perhaps more frightening, and therefore postponing the aftermath we are seeking, is that treatment against the mutation may be ineffective: CDC reports: “Decreased susceptibility to therapeutic agents such as monoclonal antibodies” in mutated forms of the Corona virus.
(https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/scientific-brief-emerging-variant.html January 25, 9:30 a.m.)
An aftermath: we question and doubt information. We consider or reject “urban legends” or disguised misinformation. Our emotions overreach our wisdom. We are skeptical, critical, antagonistic, and suspicious because of COVID-19. In a mere year, we’ve lost our individual freedom: we wear masks; we isolate; we gather in groups under ten; we self-quarantine; we huddle in fear; and if we’re Republicans, we dare not speak.
Change is difficult for people. Mandated quarantine is anathema. Palpable fear invades our lives, especially for senior citizens like my husband and me. Suspicion of others spreads to canceled activities and altered lifestyles.
Parents leave jobs to attend to their children at home, a real gamechanger for family finances, routines, and patience levels.
As cases increase among us, we dread reports of daily tolls. How many are tested? Are the tests accurate? Why does it take days to get results? Why are there results for people who never took the test? Are all the deaths actually COVID-19 related? Have 420,000 Americans died this year of this one cause?
Our grown children teach music in Brevard. Locally, by March, students cannot return to school following spring break. Teachers train to teach remotely. Protocols for home settings (no views of bedrooms), class participation by students, and submission/return of work procedures are established.
Buildings are prepared and inspected according to CDC standards. Deep cleaning systems, air purifiers, masks, sanitizers, and personal protective devices are obtained through emergency grants from the federal government. States, without much leadership are thrust into battle without much input from the generals.
Then beleaguered states’ officials leave decisions up to localities. That includes the school board members who hotly debate whether masks are recommended or mandated. Parents make difficult decisions regarding home schooling, remote or in-person instruction by the district. Private schools choose their options.
Depending on the strength of teachers’ unions and community outrage, some schools in our state open; some remain closed. Some, like ours, try to accommodate everyone, to the distrust of almost everyone.
One aftermath, teachers, with their amazing flexibility, creatively teach both in-person and remotely, knowing every day they will be exposed to this marching enemy.
Hospitals cope, calling in staff, quickly training them in protocols and how to wear the new protective coverings, if indeed they can get them. Administrators, overwhelmed, schedule twelve- hour shifts. Short-handed. Patients, critically ill, in dire straits, have tried to self-medicate. Few understand the immune system itself is attacked by this thing, that inflammation and pre-existing conditions exacerbate attempts to save them unless they are treated early.
A positive aftermath: we respond well to the need. American ingenuity again results in problem solving. Ventilators? Whole industries tool up to create life-saving equipment on short notice. Warp speed. Can a vaccine be developed? The usual timeline is years. The aftermath, immense creative thought thrown at the enemy, begins. A call to arms.
War against the virus imperatives: Shut down the economy. Wash hands. Keep socially distant. Mask. Isolate. Self-quarantine. Seniors become hermits, hiding in our bivouacs.
In Florida, we shop before a hurricane. It’s just what we do. Same result now. Empty shelves! As in any crisis, self-preservation hoarding takes hold. Food and paper product prices rise dramatically
Into this thing now for a year, we know families who have lost income, businesses, and ultimately, hope. We know those whose loved ones have died alone. Loved ones mourn and grieve with survivor’s guilt. No goodbyes, no funerals, empty chairs, lost dreams, no closure. This aftermath affects generations.
And we know those so sick, they wished they could die.
Daily we hear of families and friends with positive tests. How many more pots of soup will I deliver to the sick? How many more meals will I leave outside the door, longing to hug the ones I love?
Some official somewhere asks, who in our society is truly “essential?” What a blow to the ego! We have a whole new measure of our success and worth in this aftermath. Stay home.
Engineers, we know many of them, think years learning sophisticated techniques and ways of thinking, working collaboratively, is the very essence of “essential.” After all, teachers have taught cooperative learning, group work, “getting along” skills, and brainstorming to solve problems. Suddenly, degrees and high salaries are not the measures of “essential.”
Now that engineer works from home, often while teaching/babysitting, trying to accomplish his/her little piece of the work contract. The security-clearance safe room is miles away. So now he knows only enough of the sequence to meet his/her frustrated boss’s daily quota.
Then that supervisor is also sent home to work.
How’s that going? Are your kids learning remotely? Have you figured out, you, with all your engineering degrees and expertise, how to teach your fourth grader the new way to attack division problems? Do you put all the little boxes in the right places? Better yet, you who can’t read cursive, try teaching it! Then you hear, “That’s not the way my teacher said to do that,” and tears, stamping of feet, and door-slamming result. The aftermath becomes heart-wrenching and very real when our little ones are learning to adjust to their changing, confusing, frightening world. Worse yet, is dad or mom, previously the source of all knowledge and truth, diminished in that child’s eyes?
Important question: Will appreciation for teachers be a positive aftermath?
The “essential” person stocks shelves, if there’s toilet paper available, or wipes the handles on shopping carts for hours at a time. The “essential” worker checks out groceries behind plexiglass and wipes the card swiper if he/she remembers to do that. Note: a year later, that “essential” worker can’t get the vaccine either.
Will the new normal be normal?
Our son, skilled in running the sound/vision system at church, helps create livestreaming worship services. We’re thankful technology helps us figure it out, but it raises aftermath questions. Will parishioners worship together again? Will they “watch” and have brunch in their “jammies”? Will they ever return to corporate worship?
In late May, with all precautions in place, we offer in-person worship for those daring enough to attend. Our little children, usually excused for small group activities and study, adapt to working on packets of material near their families instead. Families with any hint of infection are urged to stay home. Next week we put in place a completely masked section for those still afraid to return. Have we seen positive cases? Yes. Some among the staff.
As people we know get infected, and contact tracing includes more and more of us in webs of uncertainty, the aftermath of a year’s struggle with this beast is beginning to fray nerves and cause discouragement.
What about the survivors? We know those with chronic and frightening symptoms after having COVID-19. Many become depressed, even suicidal. Near death experiences show us how very vulnerable we are. We know that within days, each breath could be our last. The cloud hovers over our minds. Who will be next?
We all know medical personnel who have battled against this relentless thing long and hard. Each one has feared for his or her family. Many self-isolate. What is the damage to a child who no longer hugs mom at night? How do marriages survive? Each one is concerned about physical and mental health. Dealing with daily deaths and difficult recoveries in patients is exhausting. It takes a hard toll. We pray for doctors, nurses, technicians, administrators, CNAs, and cleaning crews every day. We can’t imagine how EMTs and funeral directors cope. They have not even reached the aftermath yet.
Trying to get vaccinated, I’m literally spending hours in phone-jail – on hold, listening to terrible music, before dawn two-hour second-by-second countdown clocks. Then: no appointments available.
Finally, adding insults, literally, to injury, after a contentious election, a few instances of perceived misuse of policing power, and continuous frustration, pent up stress leads to unprecedented anger, unrest, separation, ostracizing of friends and families, and riots in our cities.
A big result, an aftermath to this season is a sense of seething anger, even anarchy, waiting just beneath the surface for an excuse to break forth in civil unrest. Emotions hidden, yet so very real, smolder just below the conscious awareness. It’s like constant fight or flight syndrome. Under our masks, we’ve forgotten how to smile. We no longer converse. We lose our identity. That is threatening.
Perhaps the greatest aftermath, the threat I fear most except falling prey to this disease—me or my family— is my loss of freedom.
An aftermath of our year of COVID-19 is an election that deeply divided the country. I admit, I am on the “losing” side of the outcome. However, I am not a “cult” follower of Donald Trump.
Those now in power want to vilify, punish, malign, denigrate, even silence, those who supported Donald Trump’s conservative program, A result of January 6th is a rushed judgment of impeachment, a removal of the President from social media expression and voice, and a perceived threat against any who opposed President Biden’s election. His calls for unity while systematically enraging many with his forty-plus executive orders dismissing programs and policies without legislative debate, further divide Americans.
Sure aftermaths of COVID-19 will show its influence affected all aspects of one’s security: business, education, economy, family dynamics, mental and physical health, safety, religious practice—all pillars of society. It deeply divided the country, ended a contentious Presidency, and caused worldwide misery.
History will write the aftermath. Will man’s creativity, innovation, compassion, reasonable discourse, cooperation, and decision-making solve the tribulations a minute virus precipitated?
Chronology 11: COVID-19 Affects My Family
My husband and I, both by God’s grace, octogenarians, self-quarantined.
From January to March, we visited our Rockledge children and grandchildren by Skype. Schools were closed. Our music-teacher son and daughter-in-love struggled with at-home teaching while supervising at- home learning for their fourth and first grade children. Our other daughter set up her virtual classroom on our back porch.
By Easter, the reality of COVID-19’s threat was becoming very real and normal was anything but. About then, we saw our grandchildren on Sundays, worshipped together remotely in our home, had lunch together, and prayed for our protection. We feared infection for any of the seven of us.
During isolation, hubby and I pretty much completed our “honey-do” list around the yard and house. We shopped early hours at Publix, sewed 30+ masks, attended church livestream, and taught our church covenant group, most in their seventies, and all with chronic “pre-existing” conditions, to Zoom.
By keeping in touch with these three widows, one widower, the couple caring for parents in their 90’s, and shepherding four of our group through hospital stays during COVID-19, we have maintained close contact, virtually, through Zoom and email. We even have members in Ohio and Texas. What would we have done without technology through this pandemic?
We watch too much television drivel, read all the books we have stacked in various places, and unfortunately, send more sympathy cards than birthday greetings.
My sister and her husband visit us in April, even though we urge them not to come because the infection invasion had occurred in Brevard County.
They have an RV, insist they are self-contained and aren’t going to wear masks or take precautions. They feel safe in their confined world, their cocoon. They are not concerned about COVID-19. We, however, are and maintain our “healthy” precautions. Their statement, “We’re covered by the blood of the Lamb,” say it all. They, therefore, are totally impervious to the virus’s attack, in their opinion.
Then, they fly to Ohio to help move their daughter to Lakeland. Full plane. Crowded airports at both ends. They borrow masks from us. I’m not sure they wear them. Then they drive Deanna and her belongings by U-Haul, stopping along the way, then return here to Wickham Park to their RV over a week later.
My husband and daughter stay their distance away from Ellen and David. I, however, work closely with Ellen. Her “thing” is genealogy, so we continue our family history studies. I compile our “family tree” legacy back to the 1066 Battle of Hastings and we become fascinated with our mother’s manuscripts. I’ve postponed reading them since her death in 1997. Quarantine presents the perfect opportunity. Ellen and I are amazed what we find.
A week after Ellen and David leave, I get a rather frantic phone call. They are in a small town in Georgia, when they both test positive for COVID-19. David lands in a Podunk-center hospital where he is in their ICU. Had it not been for a new treatment, Remdesivir and an antibody infusion, he might have died.
Ellen, who has never driven the RV and hadn’t handled a stick-shift car since high school, is ten miles away from David’s hospital bed. She tests positive for COVID-19. Their campsite is miles away from stores. She maneuvers there, gets lost several times, but stocks her cupboards for what she thinks might be a day or two. She is not able to visit the hospital. She receives no treatment. It is a scary time. Deanna, in Lakeland tests positive too.
After six days, David is released from the hospital to bed rest. He has to return to the hospital for nebulizer treatments, x-rays, and observation. There is no room for him to stay, although he should remain hospitalized, they admit. Ellen becomes both patient and nurse. She learns to administer oxygen, numerous meds, and COVID-19 becomes very real. They are quarantined for two weeks more. They are too fatigued to travel anyway.
Meanwhile, we are counting days on our fingers. Are we, too, infected? As days pass, we are encouraged.
In some ways, life has become more simple, concentrating on the necessities. For old folks like us, that’s a welcome thing. But withdrawal from life steals our joy, our purpose, our incentives to achieve. Our calendar is blank. Sometimes we don’t know what day it is. Why wash the kitchen floor? No one is coming to the house.
Too many “stay in jammies” days. No haircut since last March. Why wear makeup? No one rings the doorbell. Even the Amazon guy sends us a message telling us he’s delivered a package. What happened to ringing the doorbell or stopping for a chat? We stay glued to our phones out of monotony. Not that we talk to anyone.
My routine changes. I usually meet with a ladies’ group at Cracker Barrel on Tuesdays. A few of them still meet. They’re all younger than I. If I get COVID-19, my teacher-family is exposed. There are no substitute teachers to take over their music classes. Too much to risk.
Our favorite café, our go-to takeout place, has closed twice in the last six weeks. A positive case. Then another. Yet another. The owner has time to put in new flooring. That’s about the only positive thing we’ve heard. We miss our Friday dates at his little place. We’d considered it “safe.”
Then comes November. This year there are no concerts to volunteer for, although the Symphony does have drive-in concerts we attend. There is no Christmas music to learn for choir. There are no Christmas parties, no school concerts to attend, no soccer or basketball games. We dared not go to restaurants, although we do support some of our favorite places ordering takeout.
There is no mother-daughter dress shopping for the perfect holiday outfit. In fact, sight unseen, we shop online. We see more of the Amazon prime™ delivery guy than friends.
Our only “out of the ordinary” is a big negative. We are victims of a scam, hack, or fraud against our bank account. We spend weeks changing all our account numbers, especially places with our online payments. What a hassle! That at least gives my husband something to do while I write a book!
On a personal note, while we’ve been restricting our excursions away from home to what we consider “safe places,” we’ve carry on our lives in isolation. My husband’s duties as an elder of our church have kept him extremely active, if sitting in his desk chair and Zooming can be considered active.
Through countless meetings, a great deal of prayer, and God’s guidance, the elders have negotiated a deal to sell our present church building and grounds, including the Christian school we’ve sponsored for almost thirty years, to Pineapple Cove, a school outfit here in Palm Bay. We will build new facilities at the other end of our property. This new vision will serve as an aftermath of God’s leading for the future.
We’ve also sponsor four new church plants during the pandemic, and our seminary is preparing to launch another fully-prepared pastor, a recent seminary graduate from our congregation, to begin our second local new church plant.
Our missionary conference this year highlights zoom meetings from across the world. We cannot invite the twenty or so church leaders from abroad to attend our usual big congregational meeting. This is usually a big deal, featuring foods from all the areas from which our guests come: Indonesia, India, China, Brazil, Argentina, France, England, Chile, Miramar, Ukraine, and others. Most feature indigenous pastors, and several of these new church plants have already begun new church plants as part of their mission.
Our website says: “we are committed to planting churches globally and locally. By our church’s 50th anniversary in 2028, we have a vision to help plant 50 new churches around the world, with at least 3-5 of those churches being planted in our own backyard.” We’re well on our way!
Already, during this pandemic, we have partnered in establishing three new congregations in former Soviet Union countries. Even when some of our families have suffered financial losses during the pandemic, our Faith Promise giving to missions and other outreaches continues to flourish. We’d consider this an aftermath in our ministry history.
In December, our congregation contributes over 250 Operation Christmas Child boxes to Samaritan’s Purse and provides110 gallons of frozen soup to His Place ministries in Melbourne to feed people. Although their cold night shelter has been closed this year, their clients are still being fed. Our members have adopted four local schools, helping with landscaping, painting, and providing supplies, gifts, teacher appreciation events, and meals. Now, at a time when sharing is so very important, we are supporting local and distant ministries, broadcasting livestream, and accomplishing our ministry goals. Even in times of crisis, and perhaps as a result, these are positive aftermaths we will continue contributing.
The pandemic has opened our eyes to challenges. Our Stephen ministry is busy counseling people whose spirits are affected by isolation: those adjusting to difficulties living together 24/7 in families where there is discord, those who have lost employment and businesses, and those who grieve. We counsel and supervise programs for those with addiction, those overcoming or dealing with sexual abuse, and our isolated widows and our singles who are living alone. Our mercy ministry reaches out to our own members and to others in the community.
In the aftermath of COVID-19, we have adapted. We’ve found a cooperative spirit in accomplishing difficult tasks. We’ve created. We’ve accommodated. These have strengthened us and will continue in the aftermath.
Our two grown children and our daughter-in-love are orchestra musicians and teachers. To say local musical groups have been suffering through this time is an understatement. For some musicians and artists, contact with an admiring public means they get paid. Not so much now. Their income has suffered.
Teaching students to play the violin or cello remotely is difficult. I admire the way teachers have learned new skills to teach Brevard County students remotely and teach others in person in modified classrooms at the same time. It is immensely stressful.
Between encounters with their classes, they’ve become part of the school’s custodial staff, wiping down desks, instruments, chairs, and keeping students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade distant from each other, wearing masks, while restricting yet teaching them ways to make and enjoy music. A gargantuan task.
Orff instruments are silenced. Orchestra concerts, which inherently present motivating experiences for students to practice, have been canceled. All State, a supreme honor for achieving students, was virtual. They’re still proposing a one-day All County program for auditioned students. They’re still seeking approval.
Choruses can’t sing. Students have a whole new understanding of playing in ensembles when they are separated from each other. Yet, our teachers try to stay motivated, enthusiastic, while watching their star musicians languish. Their self-worth morale is at a new low. They are tired, concerned for each other and their students, and frustrated.
In our circle of friends, we know of a suicide attempt after a COVID-19 survivor was prescribed an anti-depression drug! A mother and daughter committed suicide a day apart, unable to cope. My daughter played cello at the funeral. She had taught this student, a recent graduate, for eight years. She also lost a recently-retired colleague; another young district teacher is on a ventilator in an induced coma. Many of her students have been sent home to quarantine. That affects preparation for solo and ensemble preparation for upcoming judging.
We’ve had to babysit and supervise at-home learning for our granddaughter. Someone in her class was exposed, not ill, so half the class is sent home. Teachers have home packs ready. I used to call them “busy work” in my forty-year teaching career. Detest that!
Kaley does get to attend her mom’s music class, virtually, such as it is. They can’t sing; they can’t move around the room; they practice clapping out rhythm patterns. They watch a film about a composer. There are ten students present; ten are at home, wishing they could be with their friends. I monitor temperature, hoping there’s no sign of contagion in my sweet nine-year-old. At least she doesn’t have to wear a mask all day. I take my chances.
Our daughter changes her teaching outfits before coming to our house for supper each night. She’s been exposed to music students in eight schools in Palm Bay. She could, one day, be a super spreader! She worries about that. It’s scary. Every day we get a report about whole sports teams sent home, or e-learners who have caught the virus somewhere in the community. They would have been safer in school, she contends.
For twelve years our family and volunteers have nurtured the Space Coast Symphony Orchestra. January 16-17 was their first indoor concert weekend since COVID-19 hit, with only twenty-five percent audience allowed. During the summer they performed outdoors, both in Viera and Vero Beach, with people sitting in their cars tuned to a radio station or spread through parking lots, socially distant. Additionally, performers recorded themselves on You Tube for audiences to enjoy their performances and hopefully to elicit contributions to keep the orchestra afloat. Their next performances are next weekend at Satellite High School and Vero Beach High School.
We won a sizable grant for children’s music. Implementation has taken great innovation, but we’ve done it! Our children’s programs have continued, but remotely. The orchestra members spent a day recording music for our annual children’s outreach program at great peril to their health. However, every fifth grader in Brevard and Indian River Counties heard Michelle Campanelli’s illustrated story “Music at the Watering Hole” recorded by the Symphony and presented by film to the schools as part of a grant featuring children’s music.
It was not quite the same “live” performance they’ve attended in previous years, but, through ingenuity and great personal sacrifice by the musicians and technical staff, we accomplished the purpose in an innovative way. And to augment elementary and secondary music class’s resources this year, the film has been shared for all students. Without the original intention, we have actually reached all the district’s students. That’s a first! The pandemic has taught us to be flexible, creative, and determined to overcome obstacles. Perhaps that is what we were supposed to learn from such a time as this. We pray that as an aftermath, orchestras and other creative arts survive this pandemic and its restrictions.
Quartets of Symphony players have also introduced children to instruments in several locales including the Brevard Zoo and Mckee Gardens in Vero Beach when feasible. These are outdoors and children and musicians are safe during this time.
Director Aaron Collins has shepherded the orchestra through this crisis, determined to keep on mission. Several performance spaces have been closed, so adaptation and struggles for venues continue, and there are many hungry musicians eager to perform together. We can only hope the aftermath will bring enthusiastic audiences once more to support this group. We have dared to schedule monthly indoor concerts for each upcoming month, even during this pandemic. We’re courageous, even gutsy.
Aftermath? Schooling will continue, yet nothing will ever be the same. Musicians, artists, restauranteurs, shopkeepers will struggle as they always have. Tempers will cool and people will ignore the out-of-touch politicians in Washington until we get riled up again in four years, and the “loyal” opposition will shudder as dictates require.
But writers like me, and books like this one will attempt to make sense of the world. And may we all unite to applaud Amanda Gordon’s poem recited with such passion on Inauguration Day.
We will one day hug again, maybe even shake hands. We will smile again, not just behind masks.
But we shall never forget, just as events in the past have scraped man’s consciousness raw: wars, assassinations, 9.l l, Pulse, January 6, an Inauguration in a militarized zone, and COVID-19.
It’s just that the last one permeates our lives and perhaps takes them.
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